AlphaPhoenix - 2021-02-12
Episode 3 of my series on water ice! In this video I walk through my process for vapor-growing single crystals of ice. Starting with a small single-crystal substrate, a large crystal can be grown by depositing vapor. I use a vacuum chamber to evaporate/sublimate water at about -20 celcius, then a peltier cooler to deposit that water vapor back into a solid. The awesome thing is how crystallographic the samples look - lots beautiful hexagonal facets! Extra special thanks to Steve Mould for a fantastic explanation of the thermoelectric effect: https://youtu.be/O6waiEeXDGo Other videos in this series: The Sound of Freezing, Explained! https://youtu.be/Wd_c0A8u3lw The Sound of Freezing (Bonus Footage) https://youtu.be/hpzutKRSukw What is polycrystalline water? https://youtu.be/g7ONBuVtz-w A DIY Recipe for Giant Hexagonal Ice Crystals https://youtu.be/L0SYxpVab6M Big Hexagons of Ice 2: Thermoelectric Boogaloo [TBD] Check out the other social media for updates and ramblings: https://www.reddit.com/r/TryItAgain/ https://twitter.com/Alpha__Phoenix Interesting articles for the extra-curious: J.M. Adams, W. Lewis, The Production of Large Single Crystals of Ice, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 5 (1934) 400–402. doi:10.1063/1.1751759. T. Shichiri, Faceted ice crystals grown in water without air, J. Cryst. Growth. 187 (1998) 133–137. doi:10.1016/S0022-0248(97)00839-7. P. Bisson, H. Groenzin, I.L. Barnett, M.J. Shultz, High yield, single crystal ice via the Bridgman method, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 87 (2016) 034103. doi:10.1063/1.4944481. A. Cahoon, M. Maruyama, J.S. Wettlaufer, Growth-Melt Asymmetry in Crystals and Twelve-Sided Snowflakes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 255502. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.255502. T. Gonda, The Growth of Small Ice Crystals in Gases of High and Low Pressures, C, J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan. Ser. II. 55 (1977) 142–146. doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.55.1_142. Y. Furukawa, S. Kohata, Temperature dependence of the growth form of negative crystal in an ice single crystal and evaporation kinetics for its surfaces, J. Cryst. Growth. 129 (1993) 571–581. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(93)90493-G. N.N. Khusnatdinov, V.F. Petrenko, Fast-growth technique for ice single crystals, J. Cryst. Growth. 163 (1996) 420–425. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(95)00980-9. D. v. d. S. Roos, Rapid Production of Single Crystals of Ice, J. Glaciol. 14 (1975) 325–328. doi:10.3189/s0022143000021808. #Materials #Physics #Crystals Music and images in this video: Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100326 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Space Walk by Silent Partner is licensed under a Creative Commons license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake#/media/File:Snowflake_macro_photography_1.jpg
I work in the vacuums lab at a university physics department. You are a monster for what you did to that pump.
I had to change the oil multiple times - it was super groady after getting mixed with water... I just bought “food grade” mineral oil too cause it was cheap. Not sure about the viscosity but the pump didn’t seem to mind xD
You should see what happens to one when filtering solids washed in diethyl-ether in an enclosed fume hood cabinet. Needless to say the fume hood was sashless and the undergrads were not allowed to use the vacuum pump again...or the new one rather.
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel very late to this, but companies like Harvest Rite sell oil-less vacuum pumps for use with their freeze dryers. I use them at work, very low maintenance and can handle hundreds of cycles
Try shell turbo 68 steam turbine oil. I use it in my Welsh capture pumps when recovering refrigerant from chillers. It gets milky but it's got the highest water tolerance I have found so far
@@dangoldbach6570 can confirm, gst 68 is good shit.
I remember when about half a year ago I googled pictures of single ice crystals but at best I could find some research papers on growing them, so this series has really scratched an itch of mine about ice crystals
most of the research is about tiny ones - it frustrated me nobody has tried this scale before! I know I could have made more impressive ones with real lab equipment
Someone I know just texted me a picture of a drink they froze that had formed a pattern of concentric hexagons on its surface. It was wild!
This video is the closest I was able to get to an explanation of how likely it was to occur.
The joyous laughter of a scientist doing what his 5th grade self wanted to always do himself brings me life.
What can I say, the man loves a good vaccuum
I appreciate the Kerbal Space Program music in the intro!
Haha is that Kerbal music too? Cool!
It's a really common royalty-free song (at least I use it a lot) Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel Neat to hear that's where they got it! Kerbal uses that music once you escape atmosphere and start orbiting. Kinda makes sense they would use royalty free, I don't think the original developer expected much commercial success.
I've always been scared to start playing Kerbal, lest I loose the time to do anything else.
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel you should definitely sell your life to the kerbal overlords. I did it and I'm happy for that
I believe the song is also in Fable 3
4:20 that Transition was daamn smooth!
Little bit of tv magic for ya. I oohed and aahed like the emeril live studio audience
Fooled me.
Also the timestamp lmao
You mean him grabbing the other dish?
Shhhh
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel Gotta say though, that was amazingly done! I watched that part at least 20 times to make sure ;)
Dude I love your delivery at the beginning:
"Really cool hexagonal ice cubes. I don't mean cool thermally but they will also be that"
Was the most amazingly nerdy thing I think I've heard anyone say
The MIT underwater snowflake machine for years was on display at the Museum of Science in Boston. Two of them! (so, as one was melting and re-chilling, the other was making snowflakes.) I was the tech manager there at the time. Each was a flat cell of supercooled water, mounted vertically, w/side lighting against black background, (with glycol cooling for rapid temp changes,) plus a 1cm coldfinger near the top, to produce a large excursion and nucleate some seed crystals. As they fell, the dense seeds grew to thin snowflakes up to 30mm wide, piling up at the bottom of the water-cell.
Don't let CGP Grey fool you, wetsagons are the real bestagons.
"Hexagons are the Bestagons" is a really fantastic video though. After I saw that, I spent the next two weeks inhaling every CGP Grey video I could find
isnt that vihart
@@jek__ Nah vihart is hexaflexagon
Technology Connections would have a field day with how many consecutive heat pumps are used in the cooling
Really connecting them technologies
I see you're a man of culture as well
I think 'heat pump' only refers to devices using the refrigeration cycle. The general term being 'reverse heat engine' for a device that takes work and moves heat.
“You must preheat your freezer to -20 Celsius”
Hmmm
Welcome to Cooking with AlphaPhoenix!
People living in Siberia:
Pre-Heated (relative to absolute zero :p)
I guess he going by the Kelvin standard.
Never on my life did think I would ever be so fascinated about using applied physics to try and achieve unadulterated lattice structures, but your videos are just too good. Well done.
Thanks, Youtube-algorythm!
I watch videos about squirrels and am into science, too.
Yesterday youtube decided to show me a video from Steve Mould talking about how squirrels cache acorns and how acorns use that to reproduce effectively.
That video brought me here (since I liked it).
Now that (at 6:35 ) Steve Mould gets mentioned I finally know how I got here.
4:25 that jump cut was SMOOOOOOTH lol nicely done
Very cool seeing those hexagons finally!
Reminds me of when I learned about the process for making monocrystaline silicon wafers. The nano-scale doping process for making devices was also cool, but there's something amazing about taking a tiny seed crystal and pulling a giant bullion out of molten material.
I’d love to see a bulk 14” silicon boule in person one day
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel SunEdison had one in their lobby a few years ago. 20 feet long! That's 4000 wafers or so.
Silicon is zone refined, which I think means they melt a cylinder of it from one end to the other while pulling heat out both ends. My understanding is that for this to work, the silicon would have to solidify as a single crystal, otherwise they'd collect impurities in the grain boundaries. So that suggests there are two ways used to make single crystals, the Czochralsky method but also this simpler freezing in the zone refining container. Or is zone refining done with the Czochralsky pull at the top?
If not, why bother with the Czochralsky method? They need to align the crystal orientation to the boule axis, so that the wafer can have a single crystalline face. Maybe the zone refining process doesn't give control over the crystal axes.
I wonder if there is something you can do with zone refined water that wouldn't work in presence of even tiny amounts of impurities. I can't think of one myself, which makes demonstrating zone refined ice less interesting.
@@IainMcClatchie zone melting refines the purity because the dirt will travel along with the melt zone preferentially, rather than crystallizing out. Essentially sorta like freeze-distilling.
Pro-tip: Ever noticed that large crystals are usually produced in a liquid bath?
PRo-Pro-tip: why don't you just seed a crystal on demand?
I accidentally did this once - funnily enough using a peltier the other way around:
I had a sodium acetate heat pack, and wanted to measure the temperature point at which the seed clicker stopped producing seed crystals - I was using a peltier as a heater to accurately maintain the temperature of the heat pack, as regulating the thermal output of a peltier can be done slowly by setting the power electrically and make quick adjustments by varying the temperature of the cold side (with another peltier); I found that I was getting a large single crystal at around the 56°C mark (it took ages), rather than the dentral slush that usually forms. I could not get a crystal at all above 57°, although this could have been error in my temperature sensing (I was using a schottky diode as the sensor and crude temperature readings from several sources to map the voltage drop to a temperature gradient).
The most prominent result from this is that I didn't see dendral formations if I regulated the temperature of the sodium acetate within a couple of degrees below its freezing point.
I also noticed that spawning the seed crystal often resulted in a single crystal - maybe because of the very low probability at the temperatures I was doing this at.
This video reminded me of that experiment. Maybe this could be better way of getting a single ice crystal?
The method:
Supercool pure water to a couple of degrees below zero, spawn a seed, and regulate temperature as close to below freezing as possible - note that this is somewhat self-regulating, due to the supercooled freezing effectively raising the temperature of the medium as the ice forms - you only have to keep the liquid bath temperature constant and slightly below freezing.
Just a thought, hope it helps.
Vacuum pump tip: run the water vapor through a cold trap before it goes to the pump. The "cold trap" can just be a part of the tube that you dunk in a dry ice ethanol bath, but that will get clogged easy - better trap geometries can require brazing tubes into bigger tubes though.
Just a suggestion, if you ever need degassed water again, you could degas your water by keeping it just below the boiling point for a long time (ideally for a day or two). Then you could boil some of the water off, rig steam to your peltier chamber, then vent your peltier chamber (at net positive pressure) to atmosphere to ensure it is filled only with steam (by displacement/dilution). Degas complete without potentially harming your pump. Either way, you got the results you are looking for. Good job. This was a really educational and fascinating video, and you are a good storyteller.
Been directed here, wasn't sure to subscribe until I saw the shirt, it definitely deserves a subscription!
Very nice! ❄️
I've been having a lot of issues myself with Peltier modules when I was trying to build a mini fridge/incubator for ants!
I made an oven instead. 😅
OOOOOOOH man yes that was my experience. heat removal is a PAIN
Oh no! I bet they were like, "Why God, why? What have we done to displease you?"
And the little Job ant was like, "No, it's cool guys. We should still kiss his ass."
And then you stepped in and said, "Shut up you stupid ants, God isn't real."
Here after your PhD defense. Stoked to see ice form.
I feel like we have a new "Ben at Applied Science" on youtube and I'm so incredibly excited about this.
You're such an outstanding nerd scientist! I love every moment watching this channel!
I'm glad I stumbled on this video again. I've recently been growing crystals from different chemicals. Nothing fancy, calcium acetate, sodium acetate, salt, calcium carbonate, citric acid, which makes very nice crystals. But I could never get them more than about 1cm at the largest. I'm more or less trying to do this "discovery style" just exploring and discovering it all on my own without reading anything (or very much) about it. I think even though it's about ice, the principles in this video could be applied to my own crystal growing attempts.
This project is fascinating. I especially like the adsorption cooler driven with a peltier cooler!
9:35 were you aware that that music is used for Youtube Premiers when you made this?
You're making amazing videos! Your fun with just doing things, and the spirit of a grad student, it's awesome!
Edit: Are you still grad student? Not sure, was one of your older vids maybe
soon to not be :)
People: 'There are no straight lines in nature'
Nature: 'Hold my solid water'
Meh.
Getting strong Breaking Bad vibes.. a garage, jugs, contraptions on a table, tarp covering stuff up, the Hawaiian shirt. Cooking up 'ice' 😂
Gotta get myself a Winnebago just for chemistry videos...
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel You probably already got the necessary glassware, but If you then start growing ice and other crystals in an RV.. we know where that leads.
filmed through a clear table last night
This channel will be huge sooner than we realize
I love that you have visuals for everything your talking about. Makes it simple to follow along 😄🙏🏼
A note on freezers. While they can achieve a decent difference in temperature between inside and outside they can only move a certain amount of heat per unit of time so if you try to cool a heat source with a bigger output of heat than that it will eventually just act as a big insulated box that gets warmer and warmer. This is why you cannot cool a gaming PC in the freezer. Kind of like how your initial insufficiently cooled stack of peltier elements ended up heating rather than cooling 😊👍
Your dry humor in the intro was hilarious :) Great work!
Where's the (timelapse) shot from the whole contraption in the freezer with the Sony camera looking through that glass?
Editing a supercut of those lapses as we speak! Soon...
it is crazy how underrated you are, u need more subs man
not to be a huge nerd but the drow in the legend of drizzt books, back when they had infravision, used what i now recognize as magical versions of peltier coolers to signal each other over long distances in the dark and i think that's pretty cool
Reminds me of when I went to Iceland. We passed a frozen waterfall, and a chunk had fallen and smashed weeks prior. One piece had a wonderful tessellated hexagon pattern. Really beautiful chunk of ice. I only now know what I really saw... and I'm sorry to say this man... but mother nature 1 upped you. You got out done by iceland's wonderful seasons xD
Somewhere out there, aliens make jewelry out of ice.
Fun to think about. Wonder what kinds of “biological” reactions could exist at very low temperatures by earth-life standards?
Those would probably also be rather slow-moving aliens
That is so cool! The crystal looked absolutely amazing!
Haha, jokes on you, I already watched Steve Mould's video ages ago!
I mean most of you probably came direct from his channel - there’s not a lot I can do to repay his favor...
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel I don't remember how I found you but your content is awesome nevertheless
A Dish that turns whiter and whiter the colder it gets?! THATS MEGA COOL!
Great video!
As i understand it, attempting to grow a single crystal is really tricky, imvolving a lot of effort to maintain the right concentration of available atom, ions, or molecules PLUS the right pressure PLUS the right temperature,and possibly sometimes the right electrical charge.
As near as I can tell, the people who have figured out ways of depositing perfect crystals of interesting substances (diamond, sapphire, lithium flouride used in JWST lenses) guard their secrets pretty tightly.
This gave me an eyegasm thank you
That's why I always tell people ice is a natural mineral. It occurs naturally, it has a definite composition, it has a crystaline structure it is not organic, and it's a solid.
We put rocks in our soda!
I mean, we already put rocks in our soda. That's why it's called soda -- sodium bicarbonate, which we can get as nahcolite, or crystallizing it out of mineral springs.
Also, some drinks have salt, so that's three minerals in drinks. Glass too if your clumsy! :p
Awesome video! Been waiting for this since Steve Mould's video came out. Worth the wait. Really interested in part 2. It would be cool to give a brief explanation of why it grows in steps and ledges. I'm not entirely clear on whether this is a single crystal, of if it's a polycrystalline with the basal planes all oriented in the same direction
It’s a single crystal it’s just cut at an inconvenient angle so it zigzags with facets. There’s a graphic to explain that I just put together for the next video.
I was REALLY hoping that I angled the camera and the light correctly once to see the “step flow” growth and the. Nucleation of new islands on top but unfortunately none of them were so perfect
if you don't need a large temperature delta across the peltier, it's far more effective to get a higher current rated peltier (eg the 12715) and undervolt it
Interesting point! I just bought something cheap - maybe that was a bad plan...
1 / 18 crystalline phases done! Ice II, Ice III next?
Ice nine
I briefly googled how difficult it would be to build a diamond anvil cell a few days ago, but unfortunately the answer is "pretty hard"
4:30 i though that was some kind wizardry CGI and was trying to find how it was done. after about 5 or 10 min of that i realized there was a second dish in there the whole time
Can this method be used to create super strong metal? It's my understanding that metal is much weaker than it should be because of grain boundaries and impurities?
@AlphaPhoenixChannel - 2021-02-12
Corrections etc:
[None yet! Find stuff that's wrong and let me know!]
Extra special thanks to Steve Mould for a fantastic explanation of the thermoelectric effect! (and giving my channel a shoutout way back when this project was in its infancy)
Check it out:
https://youtu.be/O6waiEeXDGo
@MultiPleaser - 2021-02-15
I don't think the heat sink and peltier junction are thermally bonded. They are physically bonded with pressure from the nuts and bolts on the bracket you made.
The instructions for using thermal compound between a CPU and heat sink say to use a single drop in the center and pressing the two together while keeping them parallel. That way all air bubbles are avoided and you won't overheat a micro spot on your CPU.
(I've done this for two, old, used computers, which never burned out a CPU. They eventually failed when the mother boards developed problems.)
I cringed when I saw the wavvy blob full of ridges of air on your heat sink.
@daven6910 - 2021-02-16
At 9:30 you use the "YouTube Premier countdown" music. Those of us who watch premiers have grown to hate it! I automatically reached for the mute button. Not your fault. Otherwise a great video.
@AlphaPhoenixChannel - 2021-02-17
@multipleaser That was not the way it actually ran - I did it the right way, with a small blob smeared out with pressure - i even filmed it from up close with a macro lens to get the squish, but somehow that footage got lost, and I ended up with a clip of that gross blob from early in the process (note that it had two peltiers on that one too), and that clip itself was ALREADY a recreation, which is why there was an awful blob on top of already flat stuff.... sorry it was cringey - i agree!
@AlphaPhoenixChannel - 2021-02-17
@dave ,N - oh no! - I used that audio on one of my favorite timelapses - sucks that it has picked up a bad connotation...
@Shipfish - 2021-07-08
I would like to know if single crystal ice has a more or less satisfying crunch than regular ice. I think that would be a delightful followup to this video!